Proprietary Jails

Nonfree (proprietary) software is very often malware (designed to
mistreat the user). Nonfree software is controlled by its developers,
which puts them in a position of power over the users; that is the
basic injustice. The developers often exercise that power to the
detriment of the users they ought to serve.

Here are examples of proprietary operating systems that are
jails: they are designed to impose censorship of which
applications the user can install.
The image of the iPrison
illustrates this issue.

We also include specific examples of apps that were blocked using
that censorship power. If you know of additional examples, please
email the specifics to webmasters@ our domain.

These systems are platforms for censorship imposed by the company
that owns the system. Selling products designed as platforms for a
company to impose censorship ought to be forbidden by law, but it
isn't.

Apple jails

Here is an article about the
code signing that the iThings use to lock up the user.

Curiously, Apple is beginning to allow limited passage through the
walls of the iThing jail: users can now install apps built from
source code, provided the source code is written in Swift. Users
cannot do this freely because they are required to identify
themselves. Here
are details. While this is a crack in the prison walls, it is not
big enough to mean that the iThings are no longer jails.

This is ironic because LinkedIn is a surveillance system itself.
While subjecting its users to its own surveillance, it tries to
protect its users from Russian surveillance, and is therefore
subject to Russian censorship.

This ludicrous rigidity illustrates the point that Apple should not
be allowed to censor apps. Even if Apple carried out this act of
censorship with some care, it would still be wrong. Whether racism
is bad, whether educating people about drone attacks is bad, are not
the real issue. Apple should not have the power to impose its views
about either of these questions, or any other.